Confusion Constitutes Harm

I was thinking the other day about my childhood. It was about a matter that baffled me for many years. I used to wonder why I was different from my brothers. Why I saw things in a different way than they did and felt or experienced life in a dissimilar way from them.

It always felt odd to me that we had the same parents, were brought up together in the same home and environment and yet in some marked ways I was very different from them.

Even when I discovered the reason behind our differences, many years later, it did not dawn on me that the confusion I experienced had been very harmful to me.

I don’t know about you, but I tended to see harm in more obvious ways such as physical abuse, neglect, sexual abuse or some kind of emotional abuse, like being exposed to violence or by a parent being ill-attuned to a child’s emotional needs.

Recognising the state of confusion as being harmful to a child, or for an adult for that matter, was not something that I gave any thought to really, until some years ago when I was listening to a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist giving evidence in a case.

The psychiatrist was referring to the behaviour of the parents in that case as harmful because it resulted in causing the child to experience confusion.

Following hearing the psychiatrist’s evidence I realised that although it was not the way I normally thought about harm, that any situation which resulted in a child feeling confused was harmful to them.

Why is that harmful, you might ask?

Well...how does confusion impact on you?

?It leaves you feeling baffled, undecided, uncertain or not knowing the direction to take. When confused you are in a state of internal chaos about a matter that is significant to you.

Being confused for a short period of time about trivial matters is something we all encounter from time to time and the impact is unlikely to be devastating.

But being confused about an issue that is significant to you, is far more serious and the longer that state of confusion persists, the longer you are caught in a state of internal chaos or disorder, which negatively affects your wellbeing and the quality of your life.

To put it another way, if you view your life as basically being a journey, or stages of journeys from let’s say, point A to point B. Then whatever vehicle you use as long as you are clear or certain about your destination, you can chart a path straight to it.

When you are confused however it is tantamount to being uncertain about your destination and instead of charting a straight path from A to B, confusion can be illustrated as simply going round and round in an endless circle leading you nowhere but back to your starting point.

Confusion then wastes your time. Time is precious, and it negatively impacts your self esteem and sense of fulfilment. Your self esteem and self image determine to a large extent what you achieve and attract in to your life and thus how fulfilled or unfulfilled you are.?